The shallow depth of the quake meant it was felt more strongly near the epicentre than a deeper quake of similar magnitude would be.
So far, hundreds of reports have been made to Geoscience Australia, with the majority coming from Perth residents who described their beds swaying during the tremor.
‘It lasted about 2–5 seconds, enough to rock my bed as if someone was beside it physically rocking the frame,’ said one resident.
One East Perth resident described the experience as out of this world.
‘I live in an apartment on the 24th floor in the city and it felt like someone was shaking my bed but like it was floating and shaking,’ they said.
‘Parents described it as they thought it was a ghost.’
Many residents reported the quake woke them up.
‘It woke me up, shook all my windows in the house, and after all the rattling stopped you could feel the rattle pulsate slightly and hear it like the roar of thunder,’ said another.
‘It sounded like a truck motor starting at the other end of the building,’ another resident told ABC Radio Perth.
‘It seemed to go through the building, as if it was going through the roof.
‘I went to check outside to see if there was a truck going past. But there was nothing.’
Senior seismologist Trevor Allen told ABC Radio Perth reports were coming from people far away from where the earthquake hit.
‘The earthquake appears to have been felt extensively throughout south-western WA, including in Perth,’ he said.
‘And it has been felt as far away as Kalgoorlie.’
Dr Allen said about 130 earthquakes were detected across the Wheatbelt since July last year.
‘The region has been quite active for the past 12 months,’ he said.
‘A couple of days ago there was a magnitude 4. And prior to today’s event, the largest earthquake in the region was a magnitude 4.5.
‘This is certainly the largest earthquake we have seen in the current sequence in the Wyalkatchem area.’
So far one aftershock has been recorded seven minutes after the initial quake struck.
Larger earthquakes such as this one are usually followed by smaller aftershocks in the same area for days and sometimes years after the main shock.